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Unemployed Women Increased by 60,000 in May

(CNSNews.com) - The number of women 16 and older who were unemployed in the United States climbed by 60,000 in May, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In May, there were 4,519,000 unemployed women, 60,000 more than the 4,459,000 American women who were unemployed in April, according to BLS.

At the same time, the unemployment rate for women rose to 6.2 percent in May from 6.1 percent in April.

To be counted as unemployed, a person must have actively sought a job in the last four weeks and be part of what BLS calls the civilian non-institutional population (meaning a person is 16 or older and not on active duty in the military or in an institution such as a prison, mental hospital or nursing home).

The number of American women who had jobs increased 128,000 from April to May, increasing from 68,376,000 to 68,504,000.

From April to May, the number of women in the civilian non-institutional population increased by 89,000, climbing from 127,951,000 to 128,040,000.

Of those 128,040,000 women in the civilian non-institutional population, 73,023,000 participated in the civilian labor force, meaning they either had a job or actively sought one in the past four weeks. That put the labor force participation rate for women at 57.0 percent in May—up from the 56.9 percent it was in April.

There were also 55,017,000 women who did not participate in the civilian labor force in May, meaning they neither held a job nor actively sought one.